Grave Encounters Review: a horror film afraid of its own screenwriter.

Grave Encounters is a anomaly in many ways. For one, its a horror film on Netflix with a star rating higher than three, which is stupendously rare. For another one, its a horror film on Netflix I've managed to watch past the first twenty minutes and actually finished. I couldn't even do that for "Call the Midwife." Which was a different kind of horror, "Bore-or".


I don't finish any movie without it doing at least 3 out of 4 things right:

Pacing- The ability to keep me from pulling out my phone.

Dialogue- Determined by how little I try to finish actors sentences/ block out what they're saying. 

Story- Measured by the intensity of my craving to see how it ends.

Acting- Divined by how much I forget about judging the other three.

If one is satisfactory I'll wait 10 minutes for another to impress. If that happens, I give it 20 minutes. If it can pull off three I'll finish it up and will probably write a positive review. Four and I will definitely praise the sucker and possibly watch it again a year later. So how did GE do? The short answer is "better then I thought" The accurate short answer is "but..." The accurate long answer is the rest of this article.

Horror Movie Disease #26: Fate Temping Tourette's

Yes this is a found footage movie and no, I don't think its a gimmick any more or less tired than the teen slasher framework. These horror style choices can work just as effectively as any other, so it doesn't loose points from me on that front. This film's biggest problem is further under the surface.

The set up works well enough. For a good long while you buy the cast as a reality show film crew that fudges details wherever they can to heighten the reality of their fiction. Its actually pretty fun to watch them coerce more details out of the groundskeeper and even demand better takes of "reality." The way it exposes the bald face lies of shows like Ghost Hunters and Paranormal State tickled me pink. How pink do you ask?

This pink... god I hate Ghost Hunters.

But all hubris in horror must eventually be answered for and I applaud the script for keeping the paranormal hocus-pokus to a minimum for half of the run. Though this may have been a budget issue than a creative decision (more on that later). For the first half we are treated to serviceable dialogue delivered by some damn good actors. Merwin Mondesir plays the camera man/arbitrary black character with a surprising amount of depth. He tries to hide his fear of never seeing his family again with an intentionally unconvincing braggadocio that, besides being given the only backstory in the whole film, the material doesn't call for. Sean Rogerson's  role as the host character will be pegged by the audience the instant he opens his mouth. He's so good I could have sworn I'd seen him on TV before.

"So...this script has an ending right? ...Right guys?

Everyone else is...not bad. They don't really matter. Everyone else, that is, except for Ashleigh Gryzko. The movie simply doesn't deserve her performance. Once the ghosts start rattling their chains, all the actors switch gears to "scared mode" and stay there, Only Gryzko tries to dig deeper. I have never seen a mental breakdown so excruciatingly pathetic as hers, which also makes it the most honest. If I could throw some pixie dust in the air, wish, and make her famous I would. But unfortunately, Ryan Reynolds grabbed the last box (ziz-ing!).

So now we come to the ending. By which I mean, there isn't one. Its the classic tale of writers who are really good at making introductions, better at rising action, and have absolutely no f**king clue how to tie up a plot thread. Crap just starts happening. It seems like its going somewhere at first, but ten minutes to the end I realized it was just killing time. There's a fine line between being open to interpretation, and making s**t up as you go along. GE is guilty of the latter.
 
 The link's up top, see for yourself.